Widescreen and digital TV?

[ffutures]

Can anyone give me dates for the first regular broadcast WIDE-SCREEN TV services in Britain and the USA? Presumably a pre-requirement is digital TV of some sort. Early nineties in Britain, I think, but what date in the USA?

Tried Wikipedia but for some reason format issues don't seem to be discussed much.

Comments

[heliograph.livejournal.com]

Do you mean Hi-Def or do you mean with the black bars at the top and bottom?

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

6:9 screen ratio TVs, so hi-def I suppose. We don't quite make the same distinction here because the widescreen standard is still 625 lines so far.

In Britain...

[pengshui-master.livejournal.com]

Um, palplus was around the early nineties, this link puts it at the end of 94. Becoming more regular into 95

Re: In Britain...

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

About what I thought for the UK, what I don't know is the USA.

[angusabranson.livejournal.com]

Hi Marcus, I have a question which I think you'll be able to answer.

Do you know how long an author needs to be dead (in the UK and the US) before their works become Open Source?

Thanks for any help!

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

In the UK it's simple - 70 years from death for works published before they died, or 70 years from first publication if it wasn't published in the author's lifetime.

There's also editorial copyright, which means that it's not a good idea to copy from recent editions of copyright-expired books. Think it lasts 25 years.

The USA situation is horrendously complicated, because they used to allow renewal of copyright. One way to find out is to look up the author on the online book page, http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books/index.html
If the author isn't listed, or there is a warning about some works being in copyright, you may have problems.